The web is abuzz with rumours that Nissan could launch the Sylphy – the international model of the bestselling Sentra – in India much earlier than originally projected. Analysts had predicted that the Sylphy wouldn’t be for sale in India until 2014, though following new developments it now seems possible that this could happen as early as this year.
For starters, the Japanese company’s latest model, the Nissan Sentra 2013, is on sale across the Middle East. The Sylphy, as of the last 12 months, is now for sale in Brazil and Thailand – a development that also happened much earlier than expected. This, coupled with the fact that similarly priced and marketed small sedans are being launched in India, both last year and in 2013, might mean that Nissan will be ready to play ball sooner than they would have even liked by rolling out the Sylphy in six months’ time, or certainly before the end of the year.
The eager anticipation for the Sylphy is largely due to its connection to the Sentra, which has been redesigned for 2013 and has received a good deal praise from auto journalists in the US and beyond. They have extolled the 2013 Sentra for its quiet engine, redesigned body, and economical price; the car has even added inches of legroom from previous editions while increasing fuel efficiency.
Nissan will roll out the Sylphy/Sentra in some 120 countries by the end of 2014. One of those countries was confidently slated to be India, given the size of the market and its importance, so it would not be too much of a surprise to see them do this slightly sooner than that.
Nevertheless, the move has caught some competitors off-guard, who presumably assumed that they would have a longer sales window before Nissan launched the Sylphy. But Indian customers should be happy; the Sylphy/Sentra is very good car, and it will give customers even more choice in the increasingly crowded, but not always great, category of small sedans available to Indian buyers.
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